Garlic Scapes

My garlic plants are Red Russian hard necked.  I planted them last November 1^st -- the first thing to go into this year’s onion bed.  I spaced the cloves 8 inches apart in rows 1 foot apart across the bed.  I prepared the bed and stirred in one half cup of Bone meal and one half cup of Soya meal in the bottom of the planting trench of each four foot row.

In the middle of March, I top dressed the 6 inch high garlic plants with half a lb of Alfalfa meal and gently scratched it into the top inch of soil.  In the end of April, I mulched with last year’s old maple leaves.  The plants really like the evenly moist soil.

This week I noticed the scapes were already showing up as round, pencil thickness, long, spiral stems with infant seed heads. 

 

 I picked them all at once, cutting them near the last set of leaves.  

 

I later cut the scape stems to 4 inch lengths, discarding the immature seed heads and their long, coarse, pointed tips.  Many people use the scapes as a garlic substitute, but I find them a bit too mild for that.  They are great prepared like asparagus and eaten the same way.

The garlic crop should be fully ready to lift in mid-July.  

Happy Gardening.